Chan 'Excited' to Face Plushenko at Worlds

© RIA Novosti . Maxim Bogodvid / Go to the mediabankReigning world figure skating champion Patrick Chan is relishing the prospect of competing against his one-time idol Evgeny Plushenko at this year's championships.
Reigning world figure skating champion Patrick Chan is relishing the prospect of competing against his one-time idol Evgeny Plushenko at this year's championships. - Sputnik International
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Reigning world figure skating champion Patrick Chan is relishing the prospect of competing against his one-time idol Evgeny Plushenko at this year's championships.

Reigning world figure skating champion Patrick Chan is relishing the prospect of competing against his one-time idol Evgeny Plushenko at this year's championships.

The 20-year-old Canadian, who set an International Skating Union record points haul on his way to gold in Moscow last year, has not faced off against the Russian since the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, where Plushenko won the silver and Chan came fifth.

"I'm going to be excited," Chan told icenetwork.com. "Evgeny is someone I've looked up to since I was young. ... To be on the same ice with him since the Vancouver Olympics would be very exciting. I'm a new, rejuvenated kind of skater since the Olympics. It will be interesting to see what the judges will do."

This year's world championships are in Nice, France, commencing March 26.

Plushenko, 29, has his work cut out if he is to beat Chan this time around. He is on his second major comeback to the sport in a bid to take gold at his home Olympics in Sochi in 2014. After months off the ice due to a knee injury and a disqualification for taking part in non-amateur shows, Plushenko appeared in his first competition in December, winning the Russian national championships with a rough-around-the-edges skate.

He has been given special dispensation to skate in the European championships starting next week in Sheffield, England, after failing to accrue enough points on this season's circuit to qualify.

Plushenko hopes to compete in Nice but is planning to undergo surgery on his knee after Sheffield.

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